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Webster and the Fundamental Right to Make Medical Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2021

David Orentlicher
David Orentlicher*
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School; Harvard Law School. Illinois
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Extract

The interest of the eight major organizations of health care professionals was not in debating the philosophical, ethical, moral or religious issues surrounding abortion. The members of the organizations differ on how to balance the woman's privacy right against the state's interests in maternal and fetal health, and in particular about whether the state has a compelling interest in fetal health before viability. Given the diversity of views, the brief neither endorsed nor opposed the Supreme Court's holding in Roe v. Wade that the state's interest in fetal health becomes compelling at viability.

Type
The Webster Amicus Curiae Briefs: Perspectives on the Abortion Controversy and the Role of the Supreme Court
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 15 , Issue 2-3 , 1989 , pp. 184 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics and Boston University 1989

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Footnotes

†

This is a summary of the “Brief of the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Fertility Society, American Medical Women's Association, American Psychiatric Association and American Society of Human Genetics as Amici Curiae in Support of Appellees.” The brief may be found at Congressional Information Service Microfiche, United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Card No. 46.

References

1 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

2 Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 188.029, 188.205 (1986).

3 Poland, & Russell, , The Limits of Viability: Ethical Considerations, 11 Seminars in Perinatology 257 (1987)Google Scholar.

4 The New York Stat. Task Force on Life and the Law, Fetal Extrauterine Survivability (1988) (predicting the 50% survival rate by 1987).

5 Id.

6 Id. at 7.

7 LeBolt, , Grimes, & Cates, , Mortality from Abortion and Childbirth: Are the Populations Comparable?, 248 J. A.M.A. 188, 190 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Id. at 191.

9 Id.

10 Binkin, , Trends in Induced Legal Abortion Morbidity and Mortality, 13 Clinics in Obstetrics & Gynecology 83, 90 (1986)Google Scholar; Grimes, & Schulz, , Morbidity and Mortality from Second-Trimester Abortions, 30 J. Reproductive Med. 505, 513 (1985)Google Scholar.

11 Binkin, supra note 10, at 88.

12 Id.

13 Cates, & Rochat, , Illegal Abortions in the United States: 1972-197-4, 8 Fam. Plan. Persp. 86, 91-92 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Compare, Hopkins, , Marcus, & Campbell, , Postpartum Depression: A Critical Review, 95 Psychology Bull. 498, 511 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zuckerman, & Beardslee, , Maternal Depression: A Concern for Pediatricians, 79 Pediatrics 110, 114 (1987)Google Scholar with Ashton, , The Psychosocial Outcome of Induced Abortions, 87 Brit. J. Obstetrics & Gynecology 1115, 1121 (1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ewing, & Rouse, , Therapeutic Abortion and Prior Psychiatric History, 130 Am. J. Psychiatry 37 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lazarus, & Stern, , Psychiatric Aspects of Pregnancy Termination, 13 Clinics in Obstetrics & Gynecology 125, 132 (1986)Google Scholar.

15 See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453-54 (1972); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 485-86 (1965); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

16 Roe, 410 U.S. at 153.

17 See Fitzgerald v. Porter Memorial Hosp., 523 F.2d 716, 719 (7th Cir. 1975) (“These cases do not deal with the individual's interest in protection from unwarranted public attention, comment or exploitation. They deal, rather, with the individual's right to make certain unusually important decisions that will affect his own, or his family's destiny.“).

18 Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion).

19 Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923).

20 Union Pacific Ry. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891).

21 See, e.g., Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753, 767 (1985) (“[O]ur society recognizes a significantly heightened privacy interest” when government interference in medical decisions creates any increased risk to individual health); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976) (the eighth amendment's proscription of cruel and unusual punishments is violated by “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.“).

22 City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416, 434 (1983).

23 Reproductive Health Servs. v. Webster, 851 F.2d 1071, 1075 n.5 (8th Cir. 1988).

24 Id. at 1078-79.

25 Id. at 1080.